Geoff Coupe's Blog

Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…

Category: Society

  • Dropping Knowledge

    Tomorrow sees the start of an event: Dropping Knowledge. Billed as
    112 of the world’s most compelling thinkers, artists, writers, scientists, social entrepreneurs, philosophers and humanitarians from around the world will come together in Berlin, Germany, as guests of dropping knowledge.
     
    Seated around the worlds largest table in historic Bebelplatz square, these inspiring individuals, renowned for their lasting creative or social contribution, will engage with 100 questions out of the thousands donated to dropping knowledge by the international public.
    Hmm. I’m just an old cynic, but this seems to be more of a media event than anything else. The "one minute video" on the home page of the Dropping Knowledge web site crystallises all my misgivings. A slick, oleaginous piece of puffery that makes me want to reach for the sick bucket within 10 seconds. And who on earth came up with that awful name: Dropping Knowledge? Plop. 

  • Grimm Fairy Tale

    Lucy Mangan writes an excellent piece in today’s Guardian on the strange story of Natascha Kampusch. I think she’s right, there is something about the story that makes it feel like a medieval folk tale, an archetype collected and retold by the Brothers Grimm.

  • Sign Of The Times

    The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has a new report on the state of the world’s population out today: A Passage To Hope – about women and international migration. I call it a sign of the times for two reasons. The first is that it is good to see the information spotlight being put on to migrant women, who often seem to be invisible as far as international policymakers are concerned. And second, as well as being available in traditional format, the report is available in a hyperlinked format for easy reading directly via the web.
     
    (hat tip to A Fistful of Euros for the link)

  • It’s A Boy!

    Well, whoopie-doo! But why do I get the feeling that girl babies are still seen as having less worth than boy babies, even in countries that are technologically very advanced. Must be the Nunberg Error again. Echidne has noticed the same thing. Same old, same old…

  • Granny Is Gone

    A little while back, I came across a blog with the intriguing title of "Granny Gets A Vibrator". Written by Liz, a weightlifting woman in her fifties, now living alone and diagnosed with cancer. She wrote very fluently about her life, and interactions with other people. I was a regular reader. But now, her blog has disappeared, and no longer accessible on the internet.
     
    Kerryn Goldsworthy, over at her blog, Pavlov’s Cat, writes more about the background and echoes my feelings about the disappearance of Liz’s blog. Like her, I hope that Liz is OK.

  • The Nunberg Error

    Geoff Nunberg writes about the phenomenon seen in many extrapolations of technological change: vast strides forward in technology with apparently zero movement in sociological change. This effect is seen so often that Alex Pang makes the case for naming it the Nunberg Error. I’ll support that. Geoff Nunberg also likes the idea, and points to another pleasing example of the eponymous error.

  • Scary Stuff

    Via The Proper Study of Mankind, I came across the trailer to a new documentary film: Jesus Camp. Very scary stuff – all the more so because this is real, not fiction. PSOM’s comment on the film is worth reading too. Doubtless, halfway around the world is the mirror image of Jesus Camp: Allah Camp, equally scary, equally stoking the fires of human conflict.

  • Two Data Points

    The first is Johann Hari’s column on Shazia Mirza (a Muslim woman stand-up comic), and by extension, the unattractive face of Islamic fundamentalists.
     
    The second is Muhajababes, a book by Allegra Stratton, which illustrates the multiple facets of Islamic youth.
     
    Which is true? Why, they both are. That’s the panoply of humanity: good, bad, wacked and sane…

  • Only Connect

    Houtlust has a link to an interesting Ad campaign in Germany. Martin worked with mentally handicapped children and adults for years. He knew how to behave with them. I did my best, but I think I tried too hard at times. Sometimes I should just go with the flow…

  • The Commitment To Development Index

    Ethan Zuckerman, over at the WorldChanging blog, draws our attention to the annual report from the Center for Global Development on how well countries commit to international development and global aid. It’s worth reading his take on the results. The overall leader, when measured against the various dimensions, is the Netherlands. However, as he points out, while it leads in many measures, it is only average in the measure of Migration (The movement of people from poor to rich countries provides unskilled immigrants with jobs, income and knowledge. This increases the flow of money sent home by migrants abroad and the transfer of skills when the migrants return). Worse still, its score on this measure has been falling rapidly over the past three years. Methinks I detect the baleful influence of the lovely Rita Verdonk at work here.

  • Positive Blasphemy

    Two world views…
     
     
    …I’ll take the second, thanks.
     
    (hat tip to PZ Myers at Pharyngula)

  • The Definition Of Child Abuse

    OK, so this is fourth hand; me quoting a journalist quoting a Microsoft manager who quoted a "Norwegian psychologist" as saying:
     “taking a mobile phone away from a teenage girl is the same as child abuse.”
    Um, hello, what planet of hyperbole is this person from? I feel my inner Victor Meldrew struggling to let rip. However, let me treat it with the disdain that it deserves and turn to the broader point that the Microsoft manager, Anne Kriah, was making. And that was that the upcoming generation of jobseekers expect, as of right, to have internet access at their place of work. If their prospective employer doesn’t offer this, then in her words:

    “These kids are saying: forget it! I don’t want to work with you. I don’t want to work at a place where I can’t be freely online during the day.”

    I would say, let’s define the word "freely" pretty carefully. If I am at work and I have access to the internet in order to do my job effectively, then fine. But if I am simply surfing the net (or spending hours on the phone chatting with friends) instead of doing my job, then I am hardly fulfilling my side of the bargain with my employer.
     

  • Twisty Faster – I’ll Have Some Of That

    My favourite spinster aunt shows why she is the bee’s knees of lucid thinking. Nike and fashion – two words guaranteed to make me foam at the mouth.

  • Terror Has No Religion

    Zeid Nasser, over at Ad Blog Arabia, draws our attention to a new Ad campaign targeting Iraq. The television commercial is pretty powerful stuff, but I really wonder how effective it will be at influencing those who commit the violence. Via the blog, I was led to another blog: Houtlust – a blog devoted to non-profit advertising and social campaigns. My eye was immediately caught by this entry pointing to confrontational advertising protesting against the act of stoning to death. Also very powerful. 

  • Paranoia Is The New Reality

    Yet another example of the current wave of paranoia sweeping through airline travel. Note how, even once the cause has been shown to be totally innocent, "the process" must be followed at all costs.
     
    (hat tip to Bruce Schneier)

  • Will Everyone Just Calm Down?

    Bruce Schneier says it all really. Of course, since he wrote that we’ve had the incident here in The Netherlands where 12 people have been arrested after an aircraft returned to Schiphol. Doubtless that will turn out to be utter nonsense as well.
     
    Update: Yep, it was utter nonsense…

  • Mothers – Aren’t They Wonderful?

    Most men, I feel sure, are slightly in awe of their mothers, and wouldn’t want to embarrass them in any shape or form. That, I’m sure is what went through the mind of Madin Azad Amin when he was stopped by airline security. Unfortunately he failed to engage his brain with his mouth when he replied to their question about what was in his luggage.

  • Two Data Points

    The first data point: today is the first Dutch Naturalisation Day for "new" citizens. So low key that I totally didn’t realise that it was going on until I read this story on the Radio Netherlands web site. And of course, the lovely Rita is milking it for all she’s worth. This story in the NRC has a nice picture that sums up most people’s feelings about it all.
     
    Which brings me to the second data point, also on the Radio Netherlands web site, the fact that between 20 and 30 women each year visiting Morocco from the Netherlands are abandoned there by their husbands or fathers. And Rita features yet again. She met with some of these women when she visited Morocco in June 2005, and promised to take some action. But of course, Rita Verdonk, with her "hot head and cold heart" (the words of Amsterdam’s Mayor, Job Cohen) has done sod-all for them. Why am I not surprised?

  • Stripperless Funerals

    Apparently, the authorities in the Chinese province of Jiangsu have banned the use of strippers at funerals. Killjoys. I always think that funerals should have an element of celebration, and not be too po-faced.

  • Irrational Fear, Again

    Lionel Shriver, writing in today’s Guardian, has a good article on the irrational fear of terrorists. It’s a companion piece to the article by Jonah Lehrer that I mentioned earlier this month. Ms. Shriver also weaves in two other strands of the story that I think are valid. First, as she says, all the banging on about terror by Bush, Blair and the media simply drives up the level of irrational fear in the population at large. And second, that the psychological profile of a typical suicide bomber is probably very similar to how she describes them:
    "They suffer from equal parts self-pity and grandiosity. They have chips on their shoulders. They feel underestimated and nourish a private sense of superiority. They glorify their own view of the world, which they fantasise about shoving down everyone else’s throat. They covet celebrity, and even the posthumous kind will do. They’re actually very imitative, and suggestible, but they think of themselves as exceptional, as special, as elect. It’s a type. It’s not just an Islamic type. You find it in every ethnicity, all over the world".
    And, I would add, they are usually male. The female of the species seems to be slightly more balanced, although there is probably little to choose between the Tricoteuses and the serried ranks of women clad in black burqas urging on their menfolk